Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Geospatial Location of Music and Sound Files

Using GIS to locate where something came from on the internet is a relatively new concept.  By mapping where different audio files come from it can benefit the public in a number of ways.  First of all, it can help narrow or refine searches based on what is most popular in your area, GIS can also help market certain types of music or inform artists where they should focus their music tours.  It can also help select sites that are geographically closer to users downloading music, therefore creating faster download times.  Having the knowledge of what is currently most popular and where can be difficult for research being done in music, and using GIS may help in that.  GIS used in collaboration with Music Information Systems, or MIR, will obtain the data necessary for these projects.  The MIR being used for this research is different from the rest in that it only uses information from what is available on the web.
The map shows European sound file distribution by percentage, meaning the numbers shown are the percentage of the sample's sound files retrieved.  Having the geographic information of these numbers is important to be able to compare it against other statistics that may be available for that country. 

8 comments:

  1. I have seen this technology appear in the vast music world of Spotify but was unaware of the theory or methodology behind it. Cool that it is a component of GIS.

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  2. This is really cool, and with GIS you can find so many types of backgrounds its crazy. It would be interesting to compare a country background with musicians and see if the heritage had any correlation with places of origin.

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  3. This is really cool, and with GIS you can find so many types of backgrounds its crazy. It would be interesting to compare a country background with musicians and see if the heritage had any correlation with places of origin.

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  4. The most fascinating thing is that GIS is almost used everywhere and I did not aware the music app that I am currently using is based on GIS technology.

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  5. Music apps like Soundcloud and Pandora have features that allow for the user to see what songs are being listened to in different parts of the world. I wonder if a similar type of practice could be applied on a smaller scale. Instead of "Here's what people in Norway are listening to" it would be cool if they could tell you "here's a song that being played a lot in Georgetown, Texas". Though, it would probably be a country song.

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  6. Music apps like Soundcloud and Pandora have features that allow for the user to see what songs are being listened to in different parts of the world. I wonder if a similar type of practice could be applied on a smaller scale. Instead of "Here's what people in Norway are listening to" it would be cool if they could tell you "here's a song that being played a lot in Georgetown, Texas". Though, it would probably be a country song.

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  7. Looking at these results it is interesting to me that France has a significantly low percentage when compared to Germany and Italy. Historically a lot of music that is practiced by professional musicians originates in Italy, France, and Germany so I'm surprised that it is not highly representative in present day.

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  8. Looking at these results it is interesting to me that France has a significantly low percentage when compared to Germany and Italy. Historically a lot of music that is practiced by professional musicians originates in Italy, France, and Germany so I'm surprised that it is not highly representative in present day.

    ReplyDelete